Vinyl siding is popularly used as a substitute for clapboard siding and has the advantage of low maintenance and high resistance to weathering. Vinyl siding is easily applied by home remodelers and do-it-yourselfers. This siding is made by a known extrusion process with a common panel size of 8 inches wide by 12 feet long, although other lengths and widths can be used as appropriate. The siding is normally formed with a hanger strip along one edge which interlocks with a mating strip along the edge of an adjoining strip. These hanger strips complicate packing the strips in stacks within a box or carton, and to achieve maximum space efficiency, the strips are normally alternated in orientation. Moreover, stacking and packing of the panel strips is done by hand in most manufacturing plants. Repetitive hand and wrist movement is required, which can lead to repetitive stress injury. The panel strips are stacked in boxes or cartons which are then sealed and routed for shipment. The boxes arrive at the manufacturing plant as flat, corrugated blanks which have predetermined score lines along which the blanks are folded. The boxes are normally assembled by hand, and because the corrugated board is quite stiff, folding the boxes is another source of repetitive stress injury to the hands and wrists of the operator.
Various attempts have been made to automate the siding sorting and packing process, including those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,941,309 and 5,024,045 to CertainTeed Corporation. These disclose separate machines that prefold boxes from corrugated blanks but which still require significant amounts of hand work.
Accordingly, the objects of the present invention are: to provide a combined siding sorting and box folding machine that automatically folds and positions a box adjacent a siding panel receiving station; to provide such a machine that is able to selectively orient siding panels for saving space within the box; to provide such a machine which is able to seal boxes once they are filled; and to provide such a machine that is compact and well suited for the task.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description taken in connection with the drawings which disclose an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.